Let's Play School

Student,

Teacher,

Learning,

Play School

Who doesn't like to play school? 

Who doesn't like to be the teacher? 

One afternoon, I suggested we play school with a magnetic easel and letters I had bought for my granddaughter.   Quickly, I added, "And you can be the teacher!"  A smile broadened across her cute little face.  She went right into teacher mode.  "Baka, I want you to find the letter h."  I found small h and capital H.  As I placed them on the easel, I said, "Small h, capital H."  There was no explanation, remember not everything has to be explained.  We continued for several letters in random order until she couldn't think of others and we stopped.  She was the teacher and I wanted her to feel a sense of accomplishment in what she named.

Many schools administer early literacy checklists in grades one and two.  One of the items is usually to have children identify small and capital letters.

Volunteer

Spare a day,

Go to school,

Volunteer!

What a fantastic experience for you and your grandchildren!  Volunteer in the classroom, observe them in action, view the classroom.  I did just that, volunteered in my granddaughter's classroom.  If your grandchild has a good, organized teacher who has put in place routines and procedures in the classroom, you are in for one phenomenal experience.  Last week, I had such an experience and I am ready to go back next month.

While in the classroom I made it a point to observe:

• her interactions with other students
• interactions with teacher and students in a whole group situation
• participation in small group
• word wall- sight words that are posted - make note of them
• learning stations- make a note of the skills they are working on
• Writing Journal, Reading Journal- ask if you can flip through them, make note of phonetic spelling, drawings(do they contain details),  capital letters and periods.  It is okay not to see what you think should be complete sentences, but you want to see attempts at them.
• the letter they were working on for the week
• the name of the reading series that is in use in the classroom

With this information, you can better help your grandchildren advance in reading.

Now, what do you do with this information?  Ideas will be forthcoming in the blog over the weeks.

 

There's No Tay in Trip

Tay

Bay

Say

It's not Okay

My biggest pet peeve while teaching, especially in the role of Reading Specialist, was listening to teachers incorrectly produce the sounds for  letters.  I don't know why but many people want to combine a long a or short a sound to many letter sounds.  The most common letters I have heard are: b, c, d, f, l, m, p, t,  and w.  Adding that extra sound can really confuse children when reading and writing words.

A prime example of this confusion manifested it self when I was substituting in a first grade class the other day:

Student: How do you spell trip?

Me: Let's stretch it out together.

/t/ /r/ /i/ /p/

Student: You're wrong Mrs. Everett, there is no /t/.

Me: The letter t says /t/.

Student:  No it doesn't, it says, tay.  This is how you write trip: tarip.

If you are unsure how to properly make the sounds for the individual letters, here are some resources to help you;

Rap Our Letter Sounds | Jack Hartmann - YouTube

The Letter Sounds Song

If you want more resources, just Google "letter sounds".